'Closure can be a myth'

Doug Eastwood was 12 years old when he overheard one end of a phone conversation. As he listened, he knew something bad had happened. 

He didn’t know how bad, but he would soon find out: A cousin and an aunt had been killed in Las Vegas.  

“I remember it happening and how tragic it was,” the Post Falls man said. 

While the deaths in 1964 were traumatic, the events that led to them shook the family even more. 

Eastwood's cousin, Norma Widick, and her mother, Inez Malloy, had gone to Las Vegas to retrieve the car belonging to Widick’s husband, Gaynard Widick, who had not been heard from for several days and had been reported missing. 

While there, a man recently released from prison after serving time for armed robbery, kidnapped and killed Widick and Malloy.

And where was Gaynard Widick? 

He had done well at the racetrack a few days earlier and decided to try his luck in Las Vegas, where he lost all his money. Turned out, he had a longtime gambling addiction, but no one, not even his wife, knew about it. 

When he finally returned to his Alhambra, Calif., home, he learned of his wife’s death. He was crushed. He died a broken man 20 years later.

“He brought some stuff upon himself he couldn’t get past,” Eastwood said. “He betrayed everybody’s trust.” 

“The bricks that came down were unbelievable,” Eastwood continued. “He had no idea what he had put in motion.” 

Neither, initially, did Eastwood. 

But as the decades passed, the story remained inside him, and he knew it was a story he wanted to tell.

Earlier this year, he published “Closure Can Be A Myth: The True Story of a Family Tragedy in the Las Vegas Desert.” It offers a look at the victims, the impact on their families, the man convicted of their murders, and everything that surrounded the case. 

Eastwood, the city of Coeur d’Alene’s parks director for 35 years, retired about 10 years ago. Then, he was passionate about acquiring land and turning it into parks. He had to see the finished product. 

His quest to write this book on the murders of his relatives was much the same. He had to see the story through to the end.

“For me, writing this is almost the same feeling. You’ve got to finish it, but you’ve got to do it right," he said.  

Eastwood previously wrote, "The North Idaho Centennial Trail: The Trail That Almost Wasn’t,” and is already working on his next book about four women who went missing in Inland Empire in the 1980s, including 36-year-old Deborah Swanson from Tubbs Hill on March 29, 1986. 

But “Closure Can Be a Myth” has had his attention for the past three years. He read court records and police reports, reviewed trial transcripts, visited relatives and checked newspaper accounts. 

 In it, he outlines what happened, why, and the aftermath. 

Gaynard Widick would never forgive himself and died at the age of 47, Eastwood said, and his family had a tough time forgiving him. 

“They had as much animosity for the killer as they did for my cousin's husband that put it all in motion,” Eastwood said.  

The deaths impacted generations. 

“Just about all of us are touched one time or another by a loss we didn’t expect,” Eastwood said. 

He recalled that even as a boy, he recognized his cousin, Norma Widick, was an “extremely gifted young lady.” 

“She made everybody feel like they were the most important person,” he said. 

As Eastwood writes, she came home one night in 1964 and her husband, Gaynard Widick, wasn’t there and no one had heard from him. She reported him missing, and police later called and said they found his vehicle, a 1957 Chevrolet, in a parking lot in Las Vegas. 

She went to get it with her mother, had some trouble with the keys, got it to a locksmith and planned to drive home the next day. 

A man, Roy Warren Osborne, meantime, had hidden in the backseat of the car and after they picked it up, he showed himself, forced the women to drive into the desert, where he killed them and left their bodies, Eastwood wrote.

He was later caught and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. 

Eastwood said Osborne never admitted to the crime and died in prison. 

Gaynard Winick regretted what happened to his last day on Earth.

“His selfishness got two innocent people murdered,” Eastwood said. “He never got over it.” 

The title, “Closure Can Be a Myth,” comes from the difficulty in finding it. 

For some, the deaths of loved ones can be too much, even overwhelming, Eastwood said. 

“We’re told we have to have closure,” he said, “but you don’t ever really get to forget. You don’t ever really get over it. You put one foot in front of the other every day, but you do it more laboriously than you did yesterday.” 

"Closure Can Be a Myth: The True Story of a Family Tragedy in the Las Vegas Desert,” came out in January. It is available online and at The Well-Read Moose.